How Adults Traumatize A Child To Prevent Loss

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Misha entered our rehabilitation center already in a serious condition. He slept and ate poorly, fought with all the children, ran away from classes, refused any contact with adults. He lived on his own, but something terrible and irreparable was happening in his life. He seemed to be competing - who would destroy him faster - he himself or his circumstances.

Misha was 12 years old and raised by his grandmother. He had huge transparent blue eyes, a cynical attitude towards people and life, and complete disregard for himself.

When asked what triggered this state, the grandmother averted her eyes and muttered "well, his mother died."

But one day something strange happened. Some of the educators could no longer stand the aggressive manipulations from Misha and said, they say, I understand everything and how hard and bad it is for you, but life goes on and … She did not even have time to finish, Misha began yelling so that everyone came running. He shouted that his mother was NOT dead, she just left and will definitely return soon. Because his grandmother told him THAT.

The grandmother was summoned for an explanation, but she was stubbornly silent. Then I had to sit side by side with her and be silent for a long time. And at some point, she looked with tortured eyes at all of us, who were the same exhausted and tired, and said that Misha's mother had died five years ago, but during all these years she never TOLD him about it. She was scared to say to a seven-year-old child that her mother was no more, she did not know what words to choose, she was afraid to kill him with this news. And so I decided to say about the eternal business trip from which, someday, my mother will return.

Adult errors:

• Thinking that children DO NOT UNDERSTAND anything
• Believing that children CANNOT be told about death
• Thinking that children need to lie to something, and then, years later, tell the truth
• Believe that children should not know anything about funerals
• Thinking that kids are stupid and WON'T UNDERSTAND

The end of this story is difficult. Misha was diagnosed with a severe mental disorder that had been developing over these five years and was transferred to child psychiatry.

Many adults are afraid to deal with the topic of loss in relation to children. In children's perception, it is true, there are features, but they allow you to process the news of the loss and continue to live on. It is important to be able to use this feature correctly. But many adults are convinced that children are weak and unable to withstand Life. And from the best of intentions, they are simply traumatized:

- conceal the news of the loss

- do not talk about death and the finiteness of life

- they brush it off, they say, then you yourself will understand, you will find out

- the use of the "sacramental" phrase "don't you understand that he died !!!"

Psychology has collected a huge amount of material:

- and how children experience grief, what is the difference from adults

- and how is it right for children to talk about loss

- and in what cases urgently contact a specialist

- and what should not be said to children at such moments

All this can be taken and used in your life for the benefit of yourself and another soul, to which it is the adult who will one day inform about the loss - grandparents, distant relatives or parents. Fates are different.

But Misha's story is a story of how the fear of an adult, instead of wisdom and openness, is able to turn the fate of a child and “kill” his soul.

June 17, 2020 in a soft and environmentally friendly form at the webinar "How to communicate and behave with a child if there is a loss in the family" let's talk about the stages of grief in a child, how to talk about loss correctly and in which cases the help of a specialist is already needed